Clips

In OpenShot, when you add project files (videos, images, and audio) to the timeline, they appear as clips represented by rounded rectangles. These clips come with different properties that influence how they’re rendered and composited. These properties include the clip’s position, layer, scale, location, rotation, and alpha.

You can examine a clip’s properties by either right-clicking and selecting Properties or by double-clicking the clip. The properties are listed alphabetically in the Property dock, and you can use the filter options at the top to find specific properties. See Clip Properties for a list of all clip properties.

To make adjustments to a property:

  • For rough changes, you can drag the slider.

  • For precise adjustments, double-click the property to enter exact values.

  • If the property involves non-numerical choices, right-click or double-click for options.

Clip properties play a vital role in the Animation system. Whenever you modify a clip property, a key-frame is automatically created at the current playhead position. If you want a property change to apply throughout the entire clip, ensure the playhead is positioned at or before the clip’s start, before making adjustments. You can easily find a clip’s start by using the next/previous marker feature on the Timeline toolbar.

_images/clip-overview.jpg

#

Name

Description

1

Clip 1

A video clip

2

Transition

A gradual fade transition between the 2 clip images (does not affect the audio)

3

Clip 2

An image clip

Trimming & Slicing

OpenShot has many easy ways to adjust the start and end trim positions of a clip (also known as trimming). The most common method is simply clicking and dragging the left (or right) edge of the clip. Trimming a clip can be used to remove unwanted sections from the beginning and/or ending of a clip.

To slice a clip into smaller sections, OpenShot provides many different options, including dividing/slicing a clip at the play-head (i.e. vertical red playback line) position. Trimming and Slicing clips are two very powerful tools when editing a video project, allowing the user to quickly rearrange sections of video and remove unwanted sections.

Here is a list of all methods for cutting and/or trimming clips in OpenShot:

Trim & Slice Method

Description

Resizing Edge

Mouse over the edge of a clip, and resize the edge, by dragging it left/right.

Slice

When the play-head (i.e. vertical red playback line) is overlapping a clip, right click on the clip, and choose Slice.

Slice All

When the play-head is overlapping many clips, right click on the play-head, and choose Slice All (all intersecting clips on all tracks will be cut/sliced).

Split Clip Dialog

Right click on a file, and choose Split Clip. A dialog will appear which allows for creating lots of small cuts in a single video file.

Razor Tool

The razor tool from the Edit Toolbar cuts a clip wherever you click on it. So be careful, it is easy and dangerous!

Keep in mind that the above cutting methods also have Keyboard Shortcuts, to save even more time.

Context Menu

OpenShot has tons of great preset animations and clip properties, such as fading, sliding, zooming, reversing time, adjusting volume, etc… These presets can be accessed by right-clicking on a clip, revealing the context menu. A preset sets one (or more) clip properties for the user without needing to manually set the key-frame clip properties. See Clip Properties.

Some presets allow the user to target either the start, end, or entire clip, and most presets allow the user to reset a specific clip property. For example, when using the Volume preset, the user has the following menu options:

  • Reset - This will reset the volume to the original level.

  • Start of Clip - Your volume level selection will apply at the Beginning of the clip.

  • End of Clip - Your volume level selection will apply to the End of the clip.

  • Entire Clip - Your volume level selection will apply to the Entire clip.

_images/clip-presets.jpg

Preset Name

Description

Fade

Fade the image in or out (often easier than using a transition)

Animate

Zoom and slide a clip

Rotate

Rotate or flip a clip

Layout

Make a video smaller or larger, and snap to any corner

Time

Reverse and speed up or slow down video

Volume

Fade in or out the volume, reduce or increase the volume of a clip, or mute

Separate Audio

Separate the audio from a clip. This preset can either create a single detached audio clip (positioned on a layer below the original clip), or multiple detached audio clips (one per audio track, positioned on multiple layers below the original clip)

Slice

Cut the clip at the play-head position

Transform

Enable transform mode

Display

Show waveform or thumbnail for a clip

Properties

Show the properties panel for a clip

Copy / Paste

Copy and paste key frames or duplicate an entire clip (with all key frames)

Remove Clip

Remove a clip from the timeline

Fade

The Fade preset enables smooth transitions by gradually increasing or decreasing the clip’s opacity. It creates a fade-in or fade-out of the clip image, ideal for introducing or concluding clips. See Alpha key-frame.

  • Usage Example: Applying a fade-out to a video clip to gently conclude a scene.

  • Tip: Adjust the duration of the fade effect (slow or fast) to control its timing and intensity.

Animate

The Animate preset adds dynamic motion to clips, combining zooming and sliding animations. It animates a clip by zooming in or out while sliding across the screen. It can slide in many specific directions, or slide and zoom to a random location. See Location X and Location Y and Scale X and Scale Y key-frames.

  • Usage Example: Using the animate preset to simulate a camera movement across a landscape shot.

  • Tip: Experiment with different animation speeds and directions for diverse visual effects.

Rotate

The Rotate preset introduces easy rotation and flipping of clips, enhancing their visual appeal. It enables orientation adjustment, by rotating and flipping a clip for creative visual transformations. See Rotation key-frame.

  • Usage Example: Rotating a photo or video by 90 degree (a portrait video to a landscape)

  • Usage Example: If your video is oriented sideways (90 degrees), you can rotate it clockwise or counterclockwise by 90 degrees to bring it to the correct orientation. This can be useful when you accidentally recorded a video in portrait mode when you intended it to be landscape.

  • Usage Example: If your video is upside down, you can rotate it by 180 degrees to flip it to the correct orientation. This can happen if you accidentally held your camera the wrong way while recording.

Layout

The Layout preset adjusts the size of a clip and snaps it to a chosen corner of the screen. It resizes a clip and anchors it to a corner or the center, useful for picture-in-picture or watermark effects. See Location X and Location Y and Scale X and Scale Y key-frames.

  • Usage Example: Placing a logo in the corner of a video using the layout preset.

  • Tip: Combine with animation presets for dynamic transitions involving resizing and repositioning.

Time

The Time preset manipulates clip playback speed, allowing for reverse playback or time-lapse effects. It alters the speed and direction of a clip’s playback, enhancing visual storytelling. See Time key-frame.

  • Usage Example: Creating a slow-motion effect to emphasize a specific action.

  • Tip: Use time presets to creatively manipulate the pacing of your video.

Volume

The Volume preset controls audio properties, facilitating smooth volume adjustments. It manages audio volume, including fading in/out, reducing/increasing volume, or muting. See Volume key-frame.

  • Usage Example: Applying a gradual volume fade-out to transition between scenes.

  • Tip: Utilize volume presets for quickly lowering or raising volume levels.

Separate Audio

The Separate Audio preset splits the audio from a clip, creating detached audio clips positioned below the original clip on the timeline. This preset can either create a single detached audio clip (positioned on a layer below the original clip) or multiple detached audio clips (one per audio track, positioned on multiple layers below the original clip).

  • Usage Example: Extracting background music from a video clip for independent control.

  • Tip: Use this preset to fine-tune audio elements separately from the visual content.

Slice

The Slice preset cuts a clip at the play-head position, creating two separate clips. It divides a clip into two distinct parts at the current play-head position. See Trimming & Slicing.

  • Usage Example: Splitting a clip to remove an unwanted section.

  • Tip: Quickly cut a clip into many smaller clips, for easy rearranging.

Transform

The Transform preset activates the transform tool for a clip, allowing for quick adjustments to location, scale, rotation, shear, and rotation origin point.

To quickly adjust the location, scale, rotation, and shear of a clip, select a clip on the timeline to activate the transform tool. By default, the selected clip appears in the preview window with transform controls (blue lines and squares). Or if the transform tool is disabled, right click on a clip and choose Transform.

  • Dragging the blue squares will adjust the scale of the image.

  • Dragging the center will move the location of the image.

  • Dragging the mouse on the outside of the blue lines will rotate the image.

  • Dragging along the blue lines will shear the image in that direction.

  • Dragging the circle in the middle will move the origin point that controls the center of rotation.

Note: Pay close attention to the play-head position (red playback line). Key frames are automatically created at the current playback position, to help quickly create animations. If you want to transform a clip with no animation, be sure the playhead is positioned before (to the left) of your clip. You can also manually adjust these same clip properties in the property editor, see Clip Properties.

_images/clip-transform.jpg
  • Usage Example: Using transform mode to resize and reposition a clip for a picture-in-picture effect.

  • Tip: Utilize this preset to precisely control a clip’s appearance.

  • Tip: To crop a clip in OpenShot, you must use the Crop effect. Cropping is not a feature of the transform tool.

Display

The Display preset toggles the display mode of a clip on the timeline, showing either its waveform or thumbnail.

  • Usage Example: Displaying the audio waveform for precise audio editing.

  • Tip: Use this preset to focus on specific aspects of a clip’s audio during editing.

Properties

The Properties preset opens the properties panel for a clip, allowing quick access for adjustments to clip properties, such as location, scale, rotation, etc… See Clip Properties.

  • Usage Example: Adjusting clip properties like opacity, volume, or position.

  • Tip: Apply this preset to streamline adjustments to all clip properties in a single dock.

Copy / Paste

The Copy / Paste preset facilitates copying and pasting keyframes or duplicating an entire clip along with its keyframes.

  • Usage Example: Duplicating a clip with intricate animations for reuse in different parts of the project.

  • Tip: Use this preset to replicate animations or effects across multiple clips.

Remove Clip

The Remove Clip preset deletes a clip and its associated elements from the timeline.

  • Usage Example: Deleting unused or redundant clips to declutter the project.

  • Tip: Be cautious when using this preset, as it permanently removes clips from the timeline.

Effects

In addition to the many clip properties which can be animated and adjusted, you can also drop an effect directly onto a clip from the effects dock. Each effect is represented by a small colored letter icon. Clicking the effect icon will populate the properties of that effect, and allow you to edit (and animate) them. For the full list of effects, see Effects.

_images/clip-effects.jpg

Clip Properties

Below is a list of clip properties which can be edited, and in most cases, animated over time. To view a clip’s properties, right click and choose Properties. The property editor will appear, where you can change these properties. Note: Pay close attention to where the play-head (i.e. red playback line) is. Key frames are automatically created at the current playback position, to help quickly create animations.

When animating clip properties, you can fade a clip from opaque to transparent with alpha, slide a clip around the screen with location_x and location_y, scale a clip smaller or larger with the scale_x and scale_y, fade the volume of a clip quieter or louder with volume, and much more. If you want to set a single, static clip property with no animation, be sure the playhead is positioned before (to the left) of your clip when adjusting the property value.

See the table below for a full list of clip properties.

Clip Property Name

Type

Description

Alpha

Key-Frame

Curve representing the alpha for fading the image and adding transparency (1 to 0)

Channel Filter

Key-Frame

A number representing an audio channel to filter (clears all other channels)

Channel Mapping

Key-Frame

A number representing an audio channel to output (only works when filtering a channel)

Frame Number

Enum

The format to display the frame number (if any)

Duration

Float

The length of the clip (in seconds). Read-only property. This is calculated by: End - Start.

End

Float

The end trimming position of the clip (in seconds)

Gravity

Enum

The gravity of a clip determines where it snaps to its parent (details below)

Enable Audio

Enum

An optional override to determine if this clip has audio (-1=undefined, 0=no, 1=yes)

Enable Video

Enum

An optional override to determine if this clip has video (-1=undefined, 0=no, 1=yes)

ID

String

A randomly generated GUID (globally unique identifier) assigned to each clip. Read-only property.

Track

Int

The layer which holds the clip (higher tracks are rendered on top of lower tracks)

Location X

Key-Frame

Curve representing the relative X position in percent based on the gravity (-1 to 1)

Location Y

Key-Frame

Curve representing the relative Y position in percent based on the gravity (-1 to 1)

Volume Mixing

Enum

The volume mixing choices control how volume is adjusted before mixing (None=don’t adjust volume of this clip, Reduce=lower the volume to 80%, Average=divide volume based on # of concurrent clips, details below)

Origin X

Key-Frame

Curve representing the rotation origin point, X position in percent (-1 to 1)

Origin Y

Key-Frame

Curve representing the rotation origin point, Y position in percent (-1 to 1)

Parent

String

The parent object to this clip, which makes many of these keyframe values initialize to the parent value

Position

Float

The position of the clip on the timeline (in seconds, 0.0 is the beginning of the timeline)

Rotation

Key-Frame

Curve representing the rotation (0 to 360)

Scale

Enum

The scale determines how a clip should be resized to fit its parent (details below)

Scale X

Key-Frame

Curve representing the horizontal scaling in percent (0 to 1)

Scale Y

Key-Frame

Curve representing the vertical scaling in percent (0 to 1)

Shear X

Key-Frame

Curve representing X shear angle in degrees (-45.0=left, 45.0=right)

Shear Y

Key-Frame

Curve representing Y shear angle in degrees (-45.0=down, 45.0=up)

Start

Float

The start trimming position of the clip (in seconds)

Time

Key-Frame

Curve representing the frames over time to play (used for speed and direction of video)

Volume

Key-Frame

Curve representing the volume for fading audio quieter/louder, mute, or adjusting levels (0 to 1)

Wave Color

Key-Frame

Curve representing the color of the audio waveform

Waveform

Bool

Should a waveform be used instead of the clip’s image

Alpha

The Alpha property is a key-frame curve that represents the alpha value, determining fading and transparency of the image in the clip. The curve ranges from 1 (fully opaque) to 0 (completely transparent).

  • Usage Example: Applying a gradual fade-in or fade-out effect to smoothly transition clips.

  • Tip: Use keyframes to create complex fading patterns, such as fading in and then fading out for a ghostly effect.

Channel Filter

The Channel Filter property is a key-frame curve used for audio manipulation. It specifies a single audio channel to be filtered while clearing all other channels.

  • Usage Example: Isolating and enhancing specific audio elements, like isolating vocals from a song.

  • Tip: Combine with the “Channel Mapping” property to route the filtered channel to a specific audio output.

Channel Mapping

The Channel Mapping property is a key-frame curve that defines the output audio channel for the clip. This property works in conjunction with the “Channel Filter” property and specifies which channel is retained in the output.

  • Usage Example: Keeping the filtered channel’s audio while discarding others for an unconventional audio mix.

  • Tip: Experiment with mapping different channels to create unique audio effects, like panning sounds between speakers.

Frame Number

The Frame Number property specifies the format in which the frame numbers are displayed within the clip, if applicable.

  • Usage Example: Displaying frame numbers in the top left corner of the clip, as either absolute frame number or relative to the start of the clip.

  • Tip: This can help with identifying precise frame numbers or troubleshooting a problem.

Duration

The Duration property is a float value indicating the length of the clip in seconds. This is a Read-only property. This is calculated by: End - Start. To modify duration, you must edit the Start and/or End clip properties.

  • Usage Example: Inspect the duration of a clip to ensure it fits a specific time slot in the project.

  • Tip: Consider using the “Duration” property for clips that need to match specific time intervals, such as dialogue or scenes.

End

The End property defines the trimming point at the end of the clip in seconds, allowing you to control how much of the clip is visible in the timeline. Changing this property will impact the Duration clip property.

  • Usage Example: Trimming the end of a clip to align with another clip or trimming off unwanted sections of the clip.

  • Tip: Combine the “Start” and “End” properties to precisely control the visible portion of the clip.

Gravity

The Gravity clip property sets the initial display position coordinate (X,Y) for the clip, after it has been scaled (see Scale). This affects where the clip picture is initially displayed on the screen, for example Top Left or Bottom Right. The default gravity option is Center, which displays the picture in the very center of the screen. The gravity options are:

  • Top Left – The top and left edges of the clip align with the top and left edges of the screen

  • Top Center – The top edge of the clip aligns with the top edge of the screen; the clip is horizontally centered on the screen.

  • Top Right – The top and right edges of the clip align with the top and right edges of the screen

  • Left – The left edge of the clip aligns with the left edge of the screen; the clip is vertically centered on the screen.

  • Center (default) – The clip is centered horizontally and vertically on the screen.

  • Right – The right edge of the clip aligns with the right edge of the screen; the clip is vertically centered on the screen.

  • Bottom Left – The bottom and left edges of the clip align with the bottom and left edges of the screen

  • Bottom Center – The bottom edge of the clip aligns with the bottom edge of the screen; the clip is horizontally centered on the screen.

  • Bottom Right – The bottom and right edges of the clip align with the bottom and right edges of the screen

Enable Audio

The Enable Audio property is an enumeration that overrides the default audio setting for the clip. Possible values: -1 (undefined), 0 (no audio), 1 (audio enabled).

  • Usage Example: Turning off unwanted audio for a clip, like ambient noise.

  • Tip: Use this property to control audio playback for specific clips, especially clips which have no useful audio track.

Enable Video

The Enable Video property is an enumeration that overrides the default video setting for the clip. Possible values: -1 (undefined), 0 (no video), 1 (video enabled).

  • Usage Example: Disabling the video of a clip while retaining its audio for creating audio-only sequences.

  • Tip: This property can be helpful when creating scenes with audio commentary or voiceovers.

ID

The ID property holds a randomly generated GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) assigned to each clip, ensuring its uniqueness. This is a Read-only property, and assigned by OpenShot when a clip is created.

  • Usage Example: Referencing specific clips within custom scripts or automation tasks.

  • Tip: While typically managed behind the scenes, understanding clip IDs can aid in advanced project customization.

Track

The Track property is an integer indicating the layer on which the clip is placed. Clips on higher tracks are rendered above those on lower tracks.

  • Usage Example: Arranging clips in different layers for creating visual depth and complexity.

  • Tip: Use higher tracks for elements that need to appear above others, like text overlays or graphics.

Location X and Location Y

The Location X and Location Y properties are key-frame curves that determine the relative position of the clip, expressed in percentages, based on the specified gravity. The range for these curves is -1 to 1. See Transform.

  • Usage Example: Animating a clip’s movement across the screen using key-frame curves for both X and Y locations.

  • Tip: Combine with gravity settings to create dynamic animations that adhere to consistent alignment rules.

Volume Mixing

The Volume Mixing property is an enumeration that controls how volume adjustments are applied before mixing audio. Options: None (no adjustment), Reduce (volume lowered to 80%), Average (volume divided based on the number of concurrent clips).

  • Usage Example: Automatically lowering the volume of a clip to allow background music to stand out more prominently.

  • Tip: Experiment with volume mixing options to achieve balanced audio levels across different clips.

Mixing audio involves adjusting volume levels so that overlapping clips do not become too loud (creating audio distortion and loss of audio clarity). If you combine particularly loud audio clips on multiple tracks, clipping (a staccato audio distortion) may occur. To avoid distortion, OpenShot might need to reduce the volume levels in overlapping clips. The following audio mixing methods are available:

  • None - Make no adjustments to volume data before mixing audio. Overlapping clips will combine audio at full volume, with no reduction.

  • Average - Automatically divide the volume of each clip based on the # of overlapping clips. For example, 2 overlapping clips would each have 50% volume, 3 overlapping clips would each have 33% volume, etc…

  • Reduce - Automatically reduce overlapping clips volume by 20%, which reduces the likelihood of becoming too loud, but does not always prevent audio distortion. For example, if you have 10 loud clips overlapping, each with a 20% reduction in volume, it might still exceed the max allowable volume and exhibit audio distortion.

For quickly adjusting the volume of a clip, you can use the simple Volume Preset menu. See Context Menu. For precise control over the volume of a clip, you can manually set the Volume Key-frame. See Volume.

Origin X and Origin Y

The Origin X and Origin Y properties are key-frame curves that define the rotation origin point’s position in percentages. The range for these curves is -1 to 1. See Transform.

  • Usage Example: Rotating a clip around a specific point, such as a character’s pivot joint.

  • Tip: Set the origin point to achieve controlled and natural-looking rotations during animations.

Clip Parent

The Parent property of a clip sets the initial keyframe values to the parent object. For example, if many clips all point to the same parent clip, they will inherit all their default properties, such as location_x, location_y, scale_x, scale_y, etc… This can be very useful in certain circumstances, such as when you have many clips that need to move or scale together.

  • Usage Example: Creating complex animations by establishing a parent-child relationship between clips.

  • Tip: Utilize this property to propagate changes from the parent clip to child clips for consistent animations.

  • Tip: You can also set the parent attribute to a Tracker or Object Detector effect, so the clip follows the location and scale of a tracked object. Also see Effect Parent.

Position

The Position property determines the clip’s position on the timeline in seconds, with 0.0 indicating the beginning.

  • Usage Example: Timing a clip’s appearance to coincide with specific events in the project.

  • Tip: Adjust the position to synchronize clips with audio cues or visual elements.

Rotation

The Rotation property is a key-frame curve that controls the rotation angle of the clip, ranging from -360 to 360 degrees. You can rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. Quickly adjust the orientation angle of a clip (sideways, upside down, right side up, portrait, landscape), flip a clip, or animate the rotation. See Transform.

  • Usage Example: Simulating a spinning effect by animating the rotation curve.

  • Tip: Use this property creatively for effects like rotating text or emulating camera movement.

  • Tip: Experiment with rotating your video at different angles, not just 90 or 180 degrees. Sometimes a slight tilt or a specific angle can add creative flair to your video, especially for artistic or storytelling purposes.

  • Tip: After rotating your video, you might end up with black bars around the edges. Consider cropping and resizing the video to eliminate these bars and maintain a clean, polished look.

  • Tip: If you’re dealing with vertical videos that are meant to be watched on horizontal screens, rotate them by 90 degrees and then scale them up to fill the frame. This way, your vertical video will occupy more screen real estate.

  • Tip: If the horizon in your video appears slanted due to camera tilt, use rotation to level it. This is particularly important for landscape shots to maintain a professional and visually pleasing appearance.

Scale

The Scale property is the initial resizing or scaling method used to display the picture of a clip, which may be further adjusted by the Scale X and Scale Y clip properties (see Scale X and Scale Y). It is recommended to use assets with the same aspect ratio as your project profile, which allows many of these resizing methods to fully scale your clip up to the size of the screen, without adding any black bars on the edges. The scale methods are:

  • Best Fit (default) – The clip is as large as possible without changing the aspect ratio. This might result in black bars on certain sides of the picture, if the aspect ratio does not exactly match your project size.

  • Crop – The aspect ratio of the clip is maintained while the clip is enlarged to fill the entire screen, even if that means some of it will be cropped. This prevents black bars around the picture, but if the aspect ratio of the clip does not match the project size, some of the picture will be cropped off.

  • None – The clip is displayed in its original size. This is not recommended, since the picture will not scale correctly if you change the project profile (or project size).

  • Stretch – The clip is stretched to fill the entire screen, changing the aspect ratio if necessary.

Scale X and Scale Y

The Scale X and Scale Y properties are key-frame curves that represent horizontal and vertical scaling in percentages, respectively. The range for these curves is 0 to 1. See Transform.

  • Usage Example: Creating a zoom-in effect by animating the Scale X and Scale Y curves simultaneously.

  • Tip: Scale the image larger than the screen, only revealing a portion of the video. This is a simple way to crop a portion of the video.

  • Tip: Scale the horizontal and vertical elements separately, to squash and stretch the image in fun ways.

  • Tip: Combine scaling with rotation and location properties for dynamic transformations.

Shear X and Shear Y

The Shear X and Shear Y properties are key-frame curves that represent X and Y shear angles in degrees, respectively. See Transform.

  • Usage Example: Adding a dynamic tilt effect to a clip by animating the shear angles.

  • Tip: Use shear properties for creating slanted or skewed animations.

Start

The Start property defines the trimming point at the beginning of the clip in seconds. Changing this property will impact the Duration clip property.

  • Usage Example: Removing the initial portion of a clip to focus on a specific scene or moment.

  • Tip: Utilize the “Start” property in combination with the “End” property for precise clip trimming.

Time

The Time property is a key-frame curve that represents frames played over time, affecting the speed and direction of the video. You can use one of the available presets (normal, fast, slow, freeze, freeze & zoom, forward, backward), by right clicking on a Clip and choosing the Time menu. Many presets are available in this menu for reversing, speeding up, and slowing down a video clip, see Context Menu.

Optionally, you can manually set key-frame values for the Time property. The value represents the frame number at the position of the key-frame. This can be tricky to determine and might require a calculator to find the needed values. For example, if the beginning of your Clip sets a time value of 300 (i.e. frame 300), and the end of your clip sets a time value of 1 (frame 1), OpenShot will play this clip backwards, starting at frame 300 and ending at frame 1, at the appropriate speed (based on where these key-frames are set on the timeline). NOTE: To determine the total number of frames in a clip, multiply the duration of the file with the FPS of the project (for example: 47.0 sec clip duration X 24.0 Project FPS = 1128 total frames).

This allows for some very complex scenarios, such as jump cutting inside a clip, reversing a portion of a clip, slowing down a portion of a clip, freezing on a frame, and much more. See Animation for more details on manual key-frame animations.

  • Usage Example: Creating a slow-motion or time-lapse effect by modifying the time curve.

  • Tip: Adjust the “Time” property to control video playback speed for dramatic visual impact.

Volume

The Volume property is a key-frame curve that controls audio volume or level, ranging from 0 (mute) to 1 (full volume). For automatic adjustment of volume, see Volume Mixing.

  • Usage Example: Gradually fading out background music as dialogue becomes more prominent, or increasing or lowering the volume of a clip.

  • Tip: Combine multiple volume key-frames for nuanced audio adjustments, such as ducking the level of the music when dialog is spoken.

  • Tip: For quickly adjusting the volume of a clip you can use the simple Volume Preset menu. See Context Menu.

Wave Color

The Wave Color property is a key-frame curve that represents the color of the audio waveform visualization.

  • Usage Example: Matching the waveform color to the project’s overall visual theme.

  • Tip: Experiment with different colors to enhance the visual appeal of the waveform or animate the color over time.

Waveform

The Waveform property is a boolean that determines whether a waveform visualization is used instead of the clip’s image.

  • Usage Example: Displaying an audio waveform in place of the video for visually highlighting audio patterns.

  • Tip: Use waveform visualization for emphasizing music beats or voice modulations.

More Information

For more info on key frames and animation, see Animation.